The United Nations plans to use its upcoming UN Conference on “Sustainable Development” (UN CSD or Rio+20) in Rio de Janeiro to amass a vast array of unprecedented new powers and literally re-shape civilization, the global economy, and even peoples’ thoughts, according to official documents. All of it will be done in the name of transitioning toward a so-called “green economy.”

Among the new authorities being sought by the world body are global carbon taxes, wealth redistribution amounting to trillions of dollars per year, and a barrage of programs dealing with everything from poverty and education to health and resource allocation. Virtually no realm of human activity will be unaffected by the scheme, which analysts have described as a “mammoth exercise in global social engineering.”

The global transformation agenda was laid out in a recently published report entitled “Working towards a Balanced and Inclusive Green Economy: A United Nations System-wide Perspective.” The document — prepared by a group of more than 35 UN agencies and assorted international institutions under the banner of the UN “Environmental Management Group” (UNEMG) — explains the goals of the global body’s upcoming “sustainability” summit. The conference marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 UN Earth Summit that adopted the highly controversial “Agenda 21.”

“Transitioning to a green economy requires a fundamental shift in the way we think and act,” the document explains, calling for greater “education,” information, and “awareness” efforts to help “change individual and collective behavior” in lifestyles as well as consumption and production patterns. The agenda will necessitate “a serious rethinking of lifestyles in developed countries,” it notes.

Cost: Trillions Per Year, and Then Some

The dramatic transformation to a supposedly “green economy” — still largely undefined — will not be cheap. In fact, according to the UN, the price tag will be in the trillions of dollars per year. And consumer prices will have to increase across the board, too, with food, energy, and housing at the top of the list.

“A global transformation towards a green economy will require substantial financial resources,” the document admits, proposing “ecological taxes” as a way to “unlock” the enormous amount of funds needed to redesign human civilization. One suggestion offered in the plan: impose carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system on the people of industrialized countries to extract some $250 billion per year for the UN agenda.

But private capital will play a big role, too. According to the UN, public policy — regulations, mandates, incentives, and more — should be used to funnel investment money into green schemes on a massive scale. “By fundamentally restructuring public spending and leveraging private investments towards environmental and social investments, indebted industrial countries can expect to find new growth paths that support fiscal consolidation while contributing to a green economy,” the UN claims.

The global body estimates that its schemes just in the “green infrastructure” field will end up costing over $1 trillion per year. Of course, agriculture and industry need to be “greened” as well, according to the UN. The total price tag is expected to be over $2 trillion of direct spending and wealth transfers per year — not including the economic devastation that would result from central planning. The vast majority will be paid by taxpayers in “developed” countries.

However, the UN understands that there may be a limit to how much wealth governments can extract from their populations or divert from investors to be poured into “green” programs. So, to deal with that, the world might have to move toward an international currency that would allow global authorities to finance the schemes by printing money.

“In addition, there is a need to identify and develop new sources of international funds at scale that support the global transition towards a green economy,” the document explains. “Efforts need to be made to explore the potential for an innovative use of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), international reserve assets, and pools of concentrated assets to serve the aim of financing green economy investments with attractive social as well as private returns and increasing the provision of global public goods.”

SDRs are a proto-global currency managed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) based on the value of a basket of major fiat currencies. The global government-promoting establishment and a wide array of national leaders have been demanding for years that SDRs be used as a world currency — eventually displacing the U.S. dollar’s status.

To ensure that the global population supports the UN agenda, the controversial report notes that “UN entities need to scale up support for education” and “culture must be an integrated part of a green economy transition.” The future of humanity — the youth — must be taught about the supposed dangers of theoretical man-made global warming. And children must also learn that the UN is needed to solve the alleged problem.

“Climate change education is a particularly important part of quality education,” the report claims without elaborating. And so, the UN educational scheme “provides people at all levels of education, in particular youth, with the skills, competencies, and knowledge needed to prepare for green jobs and to change unsustainable consumption and production patterns.”

The commitment to “sustainable development” education “must, therefore, be integrated into educational curricula at all levels and in all educational settings,” the report explains. “Communication and media, including the generation of information on sustainable use of resources for poverty reduction and access to such information is also important.”

Poverty and Green Welfare

According to the UN, poverty and “sustainable development” are linked. Therefore, the global body must ensure that welfare programs represent an integral part of the so-called “green” economy. “Poverty reduction policies should be formulated with a view to encouraging sustainable consumption and production patterns and establishing a green path for future development,” the report notes.

Of course, the global transformation is going to leave a lot of people unemployed — and the UN acknowledges this, citing the fossil-fuel industry as a prime target for elimination. To deal with the destruction of livelihoods wrought by the “green” schemes, the document calls for welfare programs to support the broad array of people expected to lose their jobs.

“Measures to support the most vulnerable groups such as access to a social protection floor and social safety nets are essential to achieve social inclusion, to deal with the restructuring towards a greener economy, and to adapt to climate change,” the report claims. “Coherence between social, environmental, and economic policies is needed to maximize opportunities and buffer the social cost of the transition. A transition to a green economy needs to project a vision of a greener as well as a fairer economy and society.”

Instead of traditional indicators of human progress and well-being — economic growth, for example — the global body intends to roll out new measurements such as the “UN System Environmental-Economic Accounting” (SEEA). That way, the tremendous loss to be suffered around the world in material well-being can be camouflaged by claiming that life has improved using other measures – happiness, perhaps, or sustainability.